What is Ikea, Sirji? Hyderabad goes crazy over first India store

Swedish multinational group Ikea opened its first store in India on August 9 and Hyderabad witnessed crazy scenes as visitors tried to get a glimpse of the furniture-sellers.

advertisement

Ananya Bhattacharya

Hyderabad

August 10, 2018

UPDATED: August 10, 2018 23:57 IST

The opening of the first Ikea store in India on August 9 saw Hyderabad coming to a standstill

To understand what the entry of Ikea (Swedish multinational group that designs and sells home furniture) in India changes, you only need to go to one of those DIY (Do It Yourself) videos on Facebook. The number of views on each of those DIY home videos is a telling story. People love DIY. People want to do things themselves. And in countries where Ikea has established itself, it is the only option for people. In countries in the West, you will hardly find a carpenter spending a month at your place building your dream home for you, wood block by new wood block.

At Ikea, you do things yourself. The assembly is easy and fun. But that is not why the entry of this Swedish brand is making people in India go crazy. The Hyderabad store on Thursday saw scenes straight from pandemonium as people jostled each other to rush into the store. Everyone wants the first bite of Ikea. Everyone wants to tell their friends and brag on Facebook that they were there at the Ikea store when it entered India.

So why is it so big a deal?

WHAT IS IKEA?

When 17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad founded the brand Ikea in 1943, little did he know that it would take over the world in the decades to come. Kamprad went on to become one of the world's ten richest people (Forbes) in 2015, worth more than USD 40 billion (that's Rs 2,75,620 crore). The company has only grown since then.

Kamprad named his company IKEA after his own initials, 'E' of Elmtaryd (the farm where he grew up) and 'A' of Agunnaryd (his hometown in Smaland, Sweden).

Ikea began as a mail-order sales business. Five years later, it entered the furniture market. Kampard opened the first furniture store in Almhult, Smaland in 1958. In 2017, the brand owned and operated 415 stores in 49 countries. Its presence in developing countries is still sparse.

12-YEAR WAIT TO ENTER INDIA

It took Ikea 12 long years to enter the Indian market. Photo: Reuters

In 2006, Ikea first displayed interest in the Indian market. But Indian laws back in 2006 allowed only 51 per cent foreign ownership and foreign single-brand retailers were required to have a local partner in order to operate in India. Ikea shifted its focus elsewhere.

In January 2012, the government abandoned the rule against foreign single-brand retailers requiring a local partner for business in India, making way for global companies like Ikea to open shop in the country. A few months later, in June 2012, the government said that Ikea may invest USD 700 million in India.

In November 2012, the Foreign Investment Promotion Board gave its green signal to Ikea to open stores in India.

Ikea purchased land in Mumbai in 2016 and said that it planned to open stores in Delhi and Bengaluru too. In September 2016, Ikea announced that it had started the construction of its first store in India, in Hyderabad.

And two years later, we now have the Hyderabad store open and functional, with its eye on the Indian market.

Why is Ikea so special - this is a question that has crossed many Indian minds ever since the brand announced the opening of stores in the country. The Indian market has never seen something quite like an Ikea store. The store is a veritable town in itself. There are places to nap, there are kids' playzones and there are restaurants catering to customers from 10 in the morning to 11 in the night.

Why? Because a visit to an Ikea store requires the sacrifice of probably an entire day (or more). In the West, people stay put in Ikea stores for days at a stretch to assemble their own furniture. The process is easy. And fun. And while adults do the furniture-making, kids take a trip to Smaland. It is a family picnic of sorts.

The Ikea catalogue is exhaustive and offers a variety of furniture in addition to even mattresses and kitchen appliances. At the Hyderabad store, Day 1 saw the sale of mattresses outdoing all else!

So when you finally are done with your trip to the Ikea store and have bought furniture worth thousands, there is the (easy!) task of doing it yourself. Of assembling the furniture.

While we Indians might find it blasphemous assembling our own furniture - come to think of it, even a Flipkart or a Pepperfry needs to send an assembler home to assemble what we get home-delivered - that is how Ikea functions.

Till date, all big brands, furniture stores in the swanky malls that we have seen in the country, all deal in readymade furniture. But Ikea stores in India are likely to change the dependability we have on others for our basic work.

VISIT TO AN IKEA STORE: A PICNIC

Inside the Ikea restaurant at the Hyderabad store on Day 1. Photo: Reuters

Visiting an Ikea store is a day trip in itself. The stores are huge - HUGE, imagine 13 acres (WAY bigger than your biggest malls in the country). The biggest shopping mall in NCR, for example, DLF Mall of India, is roughly 6 acres. The Ikea stores are never within the city. They are situated far from the main city because of the sheer availability of space.

The Ikea stores, in such a case, come equipped with playzones for kids (named Smaland after Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad's home in Sweden). The Ikea restaurant offers 50 per cent Swedish fare at the Hyderabad store in addition to the regular spectrum of food. When you are at the store, you will hardly have time to get out and explore the surroundings. a) You wouldn't need to; b) You wouldn't know how to. Food, games and shopping; everything is taken care of within the four walls of the Ikea stores.